Cleveland Wins | What Must Happen for a Cavaliers Championship
The odds aren’t in Cleveland’s corner. You don’t need me to tell you that. They’re facing a 73 win team, the greatest shooter of all time, one of the top 10 shooters of all time, a motivated Draymond, an amazing bench, and all of Cleveland’s daunting history. All of the media narrative tells you that Golden State will win, quite easily. I would probably tell you that as well if I had to bet my house or something. It just doesn’t make much logical basketball sense for a Cavs championship. The numbers will tell you that, Cleveland history tells you that, and frankly LeBron would probably tell you that since two of his crunch time defensive lock-down guys are Shump and J.R. Smith. But that’s not what we’re here to discuss, because that’s a pretty easy situation to dissect and talk about. I’m here to attempt to find a scenario where Cleveland celebrates an NBA title.
There are multiple things that have to happen in order for Cleveland to win the title, but in my opinion, the first and most obvious one is a decision on the point guard level. Stats and the Cleveland.com’s Terry Pluto tells us that most of the Cav’s best three-man combinations didn’t feature Kyrie in the regular season:
- James, Love, Shumpert: plus-22
- James, Dellavedova, Love: plus-20.5
- James, Love, Thompson: plus-19.3
- James, Dellavedova, Shumpert: plus-19.2
- James, Dellavedova, Thompson: plus-17.6
- Dellavedova, Love, Thompson: plus-16.5
- James, Dellavedova, J.R. Smith: plus-15.6
Now should that be the deciding factor? No. Because the natural basketball decision is that Cleveland needs Kyrie to be star in this series for a chance. They need a Kyrie to not play hero-ball on offense, play smart on defense, and straight up score efficiently like he has done periodically throughout his career. I don’t need an amazing Kyrie on defense, I just want a Kyrie who puts forth effort and doesn’t dive for steals resulting in a broken defensive scheme. Just attempt to stay in front of Steph; try, that’s all we want. The amazing thing is Kyrie is so quick, and yet looks like a tortoise on defense half the time. His rotations and reactions just seem off. I suppose that’s what happens when your defensive habits aren’t what they should be, even if you have the talent, the smarts just aren’t there.
I’m of the belief Kyrie has to be a star and play the majority of the minutes for the Cavs to win. Don’t think I’m breaking any barriers when I say that steaming hot take. But it’s still an important distinction to be made in an era when we often choose the statistical answer over the eye test answer, which in most cases I am in agreement with. We’ve already been through the Delly plays the majority of the minutes version of the finals, and yeah, he played really well. But his dream series still had the Cavs losing. With a dream Kyrie series, the Cavs have a real shot at winning, it just can’t be at the cost of offensive efficiency and hero defense.
Another fascinating aspect of the series is the Draymond switching on defense for the Cavs. Before the playoffs I would have said this could be series deciding, but after a lackluster Draymond performance in the Thunder series, is this still a big deal?
*Side note. Draymond’s lackluster series against the Thunder wasn’t that insane. Thunder have crazy length, and Draymond couldn’t adjust on the fly, big deal. I still think with an offseason of awareness at what seems to be his kryptonite, he’ll come back and, maybe not be a superstar against teams like the Thunder, but he’ll be more efficient and effective on both ends as a result of the Thunder series.*
So does how the Cavs switch on Draymond still matter, I think it does to a certain extent. I don’t think its a series decider unless there is a crazy Draymond game and he gets his offensive swagger back. He’ll still be a great +/- guy in this series, the matchups suite him well. Short of LeBron guarding Draymond, you could argue he’ll have the advantage against anyone who’s guarding him. If anyone but LeBron is guarding him, the Dray/Steph pick-n-roll becomes dangerous again with the logical advantage going to the Warriors. If I were coaching, I would ride it out with K-Love or Tristian trying to guard Draymond. Yeah, he’ll probably roast them on the perimeter, but if I can keep LeBron roaming on defense, that becomes more valuable to me then maybe keeping Draymond to 15 points instead of 24. That is a big aspect of the series, here are a few more shorter keys to the series.
Kevin Love has to be able to play big minutes. I don’t think a Love superstar series is more important than a Kyrie superstar series, but it’s obviously still important. The Cavs need K-Love to be able to withstand pressure on defense and shoot well on offense. This is a much bigger Kyrie series, but they still need a big series from Love against the Warriors.
I don’t think LeBron has to be better than Steph in the series for the Cavs to win. I see why people say that, I just think there are way more important aspects to the series then LeBron “being better” than Steph. What hurts the Cavs, is if Steph and Klay are both better than LeBron in multiple games. But I think there are more things that the Cavs can do then just stating that LeBron needs to be better than Steph. They won’t win if LeBron is the only superstar. That happened last year in the finals and they got scorched in the last few games. Remember the “LeBron should be the MVP even if they lost the series” arguments? That didn’t work out so well for the Cavs. It won’t work well this year either. And LeBron knows it, too. IF you’re going to make the best player in the series argument, I think it has to be of the opinion that the Cavs need Kyrie to be the third best player in the series.
Probably the most obvious and likely scenario that gives the Cavs a chance of winning is if they can muster together a ridiculous shooting performances like they have so far in the playoffs. They could get a great Kyrie series, Love could play big minutes, neutralize Draymond, and they could still lose because Steph and Klay can hit 10 threes single-handedly in any game. Playing slow probably won’t work, so maybe the best scenario for the Cavs to win is if they shoot really freaking well. The problem is that the Warriors aren’t the Raptors or the Hawks, and shooting really well against them with the way the Cavs are built doesn’t seem likely.
Not the positive note Cleveland fans probably wanted this to end on, but I did my best to be positive for Cleveland. The problem is I really thought the Thunder were better than the Warriors, and the Warriors found a way to win the series. There are less scenarios for the Cavs to win then the Thunder. Could it still happen? 100%, Yes it could. With Kyrie, LeBron, and Love it’s possible, and I hope I’ve put forth a few ways that it could happen!
